End of October: The Start of Christmas Knitting

This is how I've been feeling lately! Just one stitch short of a full row.

Knitting at Angel Falls Coffee Shop in Akron Ohio. Knitters meet Friday nights, 6.30pm til... In photo: Dave, Lisa, Debbie.


In this photo: Christine, Dave, Lisa, Chris. Intense knitting! ...and coffee, tea and cakes and cookies!

We went back to Autumn House Farm three weeks ago. Lynn, one of the editors for this blog, flew in from Philadelphia and drove with Julie B. and I to the farm. It was perfect and I have to figure out how to add the link to all the pics we took. More yarn, roving and good food and beautiful scenery was more than wonderful. Restful Shepherd's Inn kept us knitting, spinning, crosstitching and the quiet was awesome: No TV, computer, phones, videos, radio, etc. Lynn thought we should have brought a radio; after all, how would we know if a tornado was coming! She said that it was for listening to PHC (Prairie Home Companion) but since she's a weather junkie, I knew why she wanted one!

I bought some beautiful hand spun and hand dyed yarns. I'm making a vest from one of Autumn House Farms patterns and I'll take pictures of it as soon as my camera starts to behave again. Becky suggested today to use duct tape rather then buying a new camera but I'm getting tired of having the blog tied up to the whims of my camera and I've always had a good camera since the 70's (yes, I'm that old!) so I miss not having one I can rely on.

OK, here we are. It's already the end of October. In fact tomorrow night we are all going to turn into pumpkins and have to change our time - yet again. Can't they just leave the time alone? But no, soon I'll be walking my dog in the dark at 4.00 P.M. Sigh.

It's been very warm this past week for this time of year. Today it went up to 76 degrees. But because I live in Ohio, I know that any minute, any hour, any day we will get that cold blast that's going to come down off Canada and across our lake. Those Canadians are sneaky bastards. Frostbacks. They want us to get cold and buy their wool. Yeah that's it.

So the heart of this rant is that now is a good time to line up any Christmas gifts you want to knit or get out those that you thought about in March (when you should have started.) Oh I even know some of you have your knitting almost done - Donna Marie... being one. But I also know one of you has beaded scarfs, hand warmers, leg warmers galore to finish. So what are you doing there sitting and reading this stuff? Get knitting!

Let's see: I have two neck warmers done, one scarf, one sock, one mitten, one half of a scarf all WIP. Oh right, there's Scott's scarf that I started 3 yrs ago I should try to finish!
Good luck all.
PS: So maybe I don't have the knitting done but I bought my Christmas stamps at the post office this week and four more boxes of cards to add to the 17 boxes I have in my studio/yarn room (that I can hardly walk through...) And I got my Halloween cards out and one Halloween gift, so there! OK I'll go knit now...

Where Did the Month Go?

This is Ms. Mimi with the big paws who is holding an expensive ball of bulky baby alpaca! I'm making neck warmers for Christmas and thought this would be perfect close to the neck. Mimi also thinks she would be perfect!
Where did the month (6wks!) go? I had decided to do some other projects so put the blog on hold and now am back full time and with weekly updates. Sorry to all who've emailed and face booked me about its updates. Nothing gets my dander more then going to my favorite sites and nobody has updated for awhile. Harrumph. Never again. If I can't get to it, I'll have a staff member do it.
Lynn and Kite are always on the ball. Me, I'm in the yarn.
Tomorrow - new stash. Deadly.

To go with Neruda's sock poem I thought that I would also add another of Debbie's socks. Her socks are so amazing. We are telling her she has to enter the "Socktober" contest at Stitch, Piece and Purl. I don't have a pic of her latest, but I do have one of the her etrelac. She usually knits on #ones: Debbie's socks - the best!

Reading Charts
Also I am teaching a Chart Reading Workshop at Stitch, Piece and Purl on Saturday, October 17 at 2.00 P.M. There's still some room in the group so if you would like to take your knitting to the next level and learn to read, write, and translate charts into pattern writing, join me. E mail me at catestitch1@yahoo.com and I'll hook you up. Bring needles, yarn for practice. I will provide knitter's graph paper (which is different from regular graph paper) and cookies.You will leave being able to read charts! Never again skip a pattern because of a chart...Also if you have a chart that is bugging you, bring it too.

October Mart and Needlework Show - Stan Hywet
Don't forget the Needlework Show and October Mart at Stan Hywet this weekend. Ran (a guy who really knits!) has two needlepoint pieces in the show and I'm excited to see them. This is the finest judged needlework show in this part of the United States. Stan Hywet, through the Needlework Guild has been a long time supporter of the needle arts.
Of course bring some moola for the Mart. Everything from Ohio and last year was a hoot. Yes I spent some money on Christmas presents, ahem. Also look for the stitching tent - good bargains. Last year I bought an encylopedia of stitches from the 1800's for 75 cents. Kite bought Christmas material for pennies.


Go knit. The other day I was thinking with Becky, that the whole world and life is about knitting... Thank you Beckers for bringing me back to knit speed. You can read about her knitting experiences in the book, "Zen and the Art of Knitting."

Knitters - Get Your Knitting Ready...

Well it's officially August...we don't really want to think about back-to-school clothes, lunches, lunch boxes, do you need new shoes again, who's driving the first week, and on and on about all those stupid reminders that summer is ending. What?! You haven't canned the tomatoes and peaches yet?

OK everyone - let's get our priorities straight. Even if you don't have kids going BTS, the feeling is in the air and at CVS, Walmart, you name it.

My number one priority: Put down that stupid cotton sweater I thought I'd have done by now and pick up something that makes sense...i.e. The Braids Cardigan. Using one of Autumn House Farms hand dyed yarn. DK weight, number 6 needle.
Oh what fun. Real wool in my hands again. (Not that I didn't have five other wool projects going but you know what I mean - A new project!)Started this last Sat. and struggled, I mean struggled with getting the first row knit. Setting up the pattern was, I thought for a while, beyond my mental capability to count that many stitches.

I know my attention span is limited but really-when you're counting 292 stitches with pattern and stitch markers, some of us are just a little slower...Stay tuned: I'm on row 3!

More WIP! Market Bags

Harriet at Autumn House (sorry I keep bringing up the same yarn company but their stuff is heavenly), asked me to knit a model for her to kit up for Rhinebeck. Here's a photo of mine and hers which both their handles put on and then Voila' I can start putting cheese and fruit in mine at the farmer's market at Lock 3 Saturday!

This is the one for Autumn House:

Cost of yarn $64.00 3 skeins each of two different colors.

Hand dyed silk, linen and cotton. When I asked Harriet if she realized how expensive the yarn she gave me would be for a market bag she pretty much said that at Rhinebeck they buy anything that isn't under the truck, having come from Manhattan for day, they like to grab fast things...


My bag is made out of cotton from Plymouth and is wonderful to knit with and about $18.00 for 3 skeins. I love this multicolored color combo. It makes me happy to knit. I love the other bag too.

My problem: which is your problem too I bet:whenever someone gives me a knitting deadline, I squirm and try to do everything, (I washed my bedroom curtains the other day...)but the commissioned knitting. Not a bad problem, those curtains needed a wash but now I have to leave the house to get this bag done.

Entrelac shawl is almost done... just finishing up the edging.

I fell in love with entrelac and can't wait to do more. This is after I said that the CIA could use learning this form as a means of torture to replace water boarding.

Red Sock that's been going on for ages - finally to the toe decrease and done! My friend Debbie from CF Knitters and Hookers (we meet Mon. nights at Panera- check Rav or ask me for more info)who knits beautiful socks (she's knitting through Cookie A.'s book) can whip up a pair in no time on size 0 needles. I love her socks. My red are done in a lace rib pattern from Box of Socks that I'm knitting through, in Soft Sea Wool, number 2 needles. I love the yarn. Almost as good as Koigu for socks. BTW sock lovers -- Koigu is coming to S,P&P this month. Keep your eyes open. I'll post as soon as I see it. The little red sock.

Debbie's socks!

Gorgeous!

It Up To Us...

So it's up to all of us now to let those sheep know that we will use some of the skillion skeins of wool we have stashed and start seriously knitting for, dare I say it, an Ohio winter! Or worse yet, Christmas gifts... Good luck knitters. To your needles.

Autumn House Farms - a knitter's heaven, that's for sure.

Hi everyone - wow what a week, can't believe it's zipped by - but last weekend was nearly perfect! My knitting/spinning friend Julie and I got to Autumn House Farm on Fri. afternoon and checked into the 'extra' original farm house that has been refurbished by Harriet and her husband Ken, a third generation self-sustaining farmer on 180 acres plus. They raise about 60 sheep, different kinds, for the quality of their fleece: wool. The farm's handle is: Where Yarn is Born.

Harriet, shepherdess, is the in charge of all dying. If I looked at a yarn in her shop that was in worsted and longed for it in sock weight, her answer, "OK I'll have it ready for you when you come over tomorrow morning." And she would...is that heaven or what. Julie spent hours spinning the most amazing chocolate and bright speckeled (?) roving. We were up at 5.30 A.M. Sat. morning knitting and spinning. I cooked farm breakfasts with the farm's fresh eggs, local slab bacon, juice, coffee, toast -mmm good.

Meet some of the great sheep - I met some of their wool and yarns too. Actually I brought home some (OK a lot) of their yarn. Ken tried to make me a deal: If I bought 3 sheep, he'd throw in a

chicken. I always thought a couple of chickens would do well in my back yard. Hmmm - sheep...

Off and Running; Things are looking up...

OK I think we are now going to have pictures that makes sense with the entries: Had the 20 something manager of AT&T store show me how to send pics from phone camera to computer! Gone are the days of poor quality phone cameras - this here one has more pixels then my digital. That's my KAL summer sweater to the left here...After July 31 it goes to the bottom of WIP and Taos winter sweater comes out!

But here's the knitting news: Had a good knit group last night. Debbie and Colleen visited to knit and Bev finally made it after the care and feeding of dear Arnold! (Who by the way checked up on her last night-did a drive by- they've been married for 40yrs? How cute is that?)

Picture of us last night, except me of course, but I've changed my feet picture for one of me knitting so you know I exist.

Next, Colleen's reversible cable scarf that she's doing in Heavenly bought at Stitch, Piece and Purl our LYS where we meet. The scarf is wonderful!

Here's Bev's amazing technicolor shawl that she's doing in Rhythm by JoJoLand. Amazing yarn - this is all one dye lot! Sitting to the right of Bev is Debbie knitting socks from Cookie A.'s book, "Sock Innovations." She was able to take the workshop with Cookie last month that I missed... Also in bottom right corner is my KAL sweater! Ribbing is Berrocco Pima (don't like-splits to hell and back) and the transition yarn is Ty-Dye which is pricier but oh what a difference. Good yarn in pima cotton! Did I tell you I hate knitting sweaters in cotton? Smile Bev, it's only knitting! (Ah well maybe way advanced knitting...)

Here's another what I call DebbieSock:

This is also from Cookies's book. The red one is fab and I think both of these are done now.

There's a lot more to talk about but this has taking longer then I expected and I have to get ready for the weekend at Autumn House Farm. Spinning, dying, knitting, meeting a beekeeper...Iz goin' ta heaven!

PS Julie made stitch markers the other night: gold rose bead with red beads and gold holder. You can imagine how nice. She wants to attach 2 with every skein she sells of her homespun. She'll be ready to sell her amazing homespun in a few months from now...stay tuned.

Next: Julie's homespun, The Heartland Shawl, Beading.

Things are not what they seem...

Ugh, sorry everyone - yes technology won. Almost. Can not for the life of me upload pics from phone to computer even though I should be able to, can not find pics on digital from chip that I loaded months ago, can not get adapter chip to be recognized by the digital from the phone and finally can not transfer what is internal in the digital right now. Don't ask - I've tried everything for the entire week. Then yesterday I updated this post and lost it when editing (my fault.) So I think that for now the techno elves on nipping my ankles and laughing...
Later I'll send photos and news of Julie's spinning. Amazing.

Snafu - Technology Almost Wins

After a wonderful 4th (and I would post photos if I could, and that's what this story is about) I went back on my mission to get what I needed to upload photos. Here's Friday's tale of woe: I could not find the chip adapter for the chip in my phone to upload pics onto my dear little computer. I looked in all the knitting bags because I was positive it was in one - even took things out and dumped project bags looking - four or five of them. Bit the bullet, went to CVS and bought another for 17.98. Then got home only to find my digital camera deader then a door nail - battery drained because it looked as if battery door was not closed completely. No big deal - just get a new battery right? Went back to CVS bought what I thought was the battery (OK I even had the battery with me but couldn't bother to look at it - I know you've been there so take that smirk off), got home, battery way too big. This was yesterday when I was on the battery hunt on the 4TH after a late knitting session at Border's. Just got home from BestBuy. Guess what? Even though my camera is very nice it's 4 years old. A 23yr old informed me that one year is considered the generation of a camera and that they probably A. don't make the camera anymore, (fur shur) and B. they don't make the battery either. ha, ha.
She started showing me more cameras that started at $109.00 and went up. I need a new battery you know, not a new camera...
I have a feeling this will continue. I'm about to search on the web...I'm going in, wish me luck. What if I put up an old picture of an apple pie or something?

Ok - apple pie on top; scene from Cooks' Forrest (one of my favorite woods in the world!) to the right -

Good news is that I spent 2 hours knitting with Crazy Becky -
She was doing cross-stitch using a beautiful wooden frame to hold her work and she also has the biggest kick ass floor loom I've ever been up close and personal to...I knitted, we drank coffee and we had a very nice time: that was BBB (before Best Buy).

Good news about the fishies. Tonight at knit group, as we checked out the blog, Trina discovered that the food is now up and running! Click your cursor in the koi pond and a piece of food will be left for 'da fishies' to eat. Crazy.

A Quickie

Duffy wanting dinner now please!

I have photos to upload and lots of news but I just haven't been able to find the time since Mon.

Will get some done tomorrow for sure. So many things I want to talk about, hmm do I even have time tonight - it's 5.25 and I have our Yarn Over The Falls Group at 6.00pm. Plus I need to outline some marketing ideas for Kathy at Cornerstones -what a great shop!

I might try some spinning with my feet and hands tomorrow at Kathy's. Don't ask me why. Crazy talk but if this is what I need to do to stay in the game then I'm there...somewhere.

There's more to come: 1. My Day at Knitting Day Camp 2. Lace Weight? 3. What Makes Good Traveling for a Project?

My current lace project is interesting. Did I say that? Not as much swearing as the entrelac (almost done - photos tomorrow) but different in a tortuous way. Lace takes on a life of its own.

Only had to start this 5 times and feeling PDL (pretty damn lucky) at that.

Good night, keep your knitting close and your enemies closer...

And could y'all feed da fishies for me too please? Don't forget Ergo, he's one of the black ones.

The cartoon...

Sorry, just click on the cartoon and it will enlarge then go back to blog. The fishies wil follow your cursor...maybe. I'm still working on that.

Ah Summertime, baseball and knitting...

It has been a banner weekend for knitting and playing! Friday night many of the knitters from Knitters and Hookers, Monday night group at Panera's went to see the triple A Aeros (Cleveland Indians farm team) play the Mets triple A in Akron. Gorgeous night - great ball - we won! And lots of good knitting. I have some pictures I haven't uploaded yet but I'll try tomorrow. I was able to knit on my red sock from the time I sat down until the top of the eighth inning.

Funniest thing:

My friend Julie and I got to the park which is just a dream park, Julie went to the ladies room and I saw an elderly usher standing doing nothing so I asked him where our seats were.

"These are handicapped seats."

"Umm where are our seats?"

"Over here." He points to an empty space next to two seats at the top of the first section.

"There are no seats here."

"There's space for your wheel chair."

"We're not in wheel chairs. We want regular seats. You have the row wrong or something."

"Nope."

"Well where do we sit?"

"Right there." ARRRGGHH! Julie comes out of bathroom and asks if anything is wrong.

"No. Don't. Ask. Him. Anything. Follow me." I found a nice stadium guy by the ticket box, he got us new tickets, let us keep our coupons for Chic-fil-a sand. and shake and we sat down.

Cheryl asked if we wanted to sit next to them and we said yes because no one was sitting there, but the usher kept giving me the evil eye and Julie said she was fine where she was and the usher kept staring at me so I stared back. Later when we were knitting, he came over and asked us if we noticed that we were now sitting in the shade and that was because he made the sun move. Really. I just knitted and nodded but Julie being a dear had a nice little conversation with the old badger.

Ohhhh. The fireworks at the end of the game were beautiful. Very zen - here and gone in a blink but so wonderful. They lasted for a good bit.

Tomorrow: Why do men make noise like moose?

Success!

It worked! The post udpated and my photo of sock from "Box of Socks." This is a good thing. Another pic from same "BOS."

Ugh

Ok this has gone on way too long! Gave it a good try yesterday with a long comment, etc but for some reason, (my fault I'm sure) nothing happened. So I'm being brief and making coffee for crazy Becky so let's see what happens today.